


Slant

by Sulwen



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Glam Rock RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sulwen/pseuds/Sulwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slant

Tommy fucks around a lot, quick, easy, meaningless sex that's hardly worth the trouble. Sometimes they're girls he knows, and sometimes he doesn't even bother learning their names. It's better than jerking off, but not by much, especially when they get all clingy afterward, texting and calling him over and over, wanting more from him. Which is, honestly, just stupid of them. He has nothing more to give.

He knows his flaws well – he has a string of exes that have made them all too clear. He's unreliable, inconsistent. He doesn't call back when he says he will. He doesn't open up emotionally. And he cheats.

Oh yeah, he cheats. It's not like he wants to, or even intends to. It just sort of... _happens._ He travels around the world and meets new, hot girls who throw themselves at him, and yeah, if he's brutally honest, he's never had a good enough reason to say no.

He's twenty-nine years old. He feels like he should have been in love by now. Most days, he isn't sure he's ever really been in love. He thinks probably not. Aren't you supposed to know, to get some feeling that makes you _sure?_

He looks at Adam, sometimes, Adam and his hookup-turned-boyfriend (something that Tommy knows would never happen for him in a thousand years). He sees the look in Adam's eyes, the warmth, the unconscious glow of pure happiness, and he thinks that's probably what love looks like. _Real_ love. The kind where you know.

 _Adam._ Tommy shuts his eyes against all the thoughts that name stirs within him, the uncomfortable mix of emotions. He wonders for the dozenth time, the hundredth, what he would do if Adam could see inside his head, look into his eyes and draw out the secrets hidden there. Because oh yes, Tommy has secrets, and most of them are to do with Adam.

It's not that he's gay. He's not. He really does get off on women, thank you very much. But he's always believed that desire...love...is more about individual _people_ than about gender, and sometimes people just _fit._ He and Adam fit. They fit so well as friends, as bandmates, as stage lovers playing out a fictional romance for the world to see. He would bet almost everything he has that they could fit as more than that, too.

But then Tommy thinks back to all the girls who have come before, remembers the hurt and heartbreak in their eyes, and knows that he can never risk being the one to bring those tears to Adam's eyes. Adam's one of the best friends he's ever had, one of the few people Tommy's ever met that he feels _gets_ him. Nothing, not the hottest sex in the history of the world, not waking up tangled together under the sheets, not secret smiles and song lyrics with hidden meanings – none of that is worth the risk of losing what he has _now._ And he _would_ lose it. He fucks up everything, in the end.

And Adam really is happy. It's good, that he's happy. Tommy has a lot of time to think these days, and sometimes he thinks about what would happen if Adam _wasn't_ happy, was lonely or mistreated or heartbroken at the hands of another. He's never seen Adam like that. He's a little afraid of what his own reaction would be. Even thinking about it makes his throat tighten and his hands curl into fists, and he's never been much of a fighter, but Adam's just turning out to be the exception to everything, isn't he?

He talks to Mia about it one night, drunk and lonely and _drunk,_ hardly aware of the words spilling out of his mouth until Mia's standing up and wrapping herself around him in a tight, full-body hug. And suddenly he goes very quiet, because if he says one more word he's going to cry.

Finally, after a long time, Mia pulls back and looks him in the eyes. “I know you don't have the best history with relationships, Tommy. _God,_ I probably know better than anyone. But did you ever think...well, I know you don't think you're a good boyfriend because you always do something to mess things up. But did you ever think that maybe you mess things up because you don't think you deserve to be happy? Because you know, Tommy, you're not perfect. But you still fucking deserve to be happy, just as much as the next person. Just as much as Adam.”

He wakes up the next morning with a splitting headache and Mia's words ringing in his ears. He pushes them away out of habit, but they keep coming back through the day, nudging at him, an itch he can't get at to scratch.

The next Friday, he goes out with a girl and doesn't sleep with her, doesn't do more than kiss her on the cheek. Instead, they _talk._ It's weird and awkward and kind of horrible, and it turns out they're really not very well-suited at all, but as he settles back into bed at the end of the night – alone – it feels like something. Maybe. A step.

He meets Talia at the little indy movie theater only a couple streets over from his apartment, the one that shows the really good horror, imports from Germany and Japan, and little movies that look like they've been made in someone's garage, and movies with no rating that unrepentantly splatter blood and gore up against the camera lens and make him grin like an idiot in his seat. Talia sells him tickets one day, him and his date, and he wouldn't have looked at her twice except for her comment on the movie he's seeing, how awesome it is. They're in the middle of an animated conversation before he even realizes, almost dizzy with the ease of it, and he only pulls away because of the look his date is giving him.

The next time he comes to the theater, he comes alone.

Talia is tiny, even shorter than Tommy. Her hair is dyed dark dark blue, and her lips are very full, and she talks so much that Tommy can't believe it isn't annoying. Maybe it's because she never talks over movies, or because she always listens when he talks, really _listens._ She comes to a Heartless gig, and Tommy sees a flash of blue hair in the crowd, and smiles to himself, and has more fun onstage since...well. Since Adam.

They don't really talk about Adam. He doesn't offer and she doesn't ask, and it’s really kind of awesome. For the first time in a long time, Tommy feels like he has something of his _own._

One night, they're cuddled up on the sofa watching not much of anything, just enjoying the night and the closeness, the soft sounds of the TV whiting out the rest of the world, and Tommy realizes at that moment that he's just... _satisfied._ He's not fidgeting, not thinking about the next drink or fuck or gig. This, right here, the solid softness of Talia against him, the smell of her hair, the sound of her slow, even breathing...he doesn't want anything else. This, on its own, is enough.

And then he feels her smile into his side and lift her face up for a kiss. It's not the first, not by a long way, but this one feels different, loaded in a way the others haven't, and it's good, softness and wet heat and thrilling as it whispers promises of _more_ into his mouth. And then a shock of fear, outright _fear,_ runs though his body, and it's all Tommy can do not to shove her away. She pulls back anyway, perhaps sensing the tension in his body, and looks up at him with simple curiosity in her eyes.

“What if...” His throat is dry, his voice breaking. “What if I...if one of us does something to....” He falls silent again, frustrated that he can't find the words. She waits.

Finally, not meeting her eyes, hardly speaking loud enough to be heard over the TV, he whispers, “I don't wanna fuck this up.”

Talia pauses a moment, quiet. Then she puts a hand on Tommy's cheek and waits until he looks up to her face. She's smiling, the little half-smile she gets when she knows she's right.

“Then don't,” she says, devastating in its simplicity. He opens his mouth to answer, to argue, and realizes he has nothing to say. And Talia laughs, and it's contagious, catching him up until he's laughing too, and he's still laughing when she hikes her skirt up and swings her leg over to straddle his lap. She presses down into him with her whole body, her tongue wet as she licks over his lips, sweet tease of pressure against his cock. His hands go to her waist, resting there at the band of her skirt, fingertips just brushing up at the exposed strip of skin there as she rests her arms around his neck. He feels like a teenager again, making out on the couch, and though it's tame compared to what he's used to, it feels novel and new and exciting, like doing everything for the first time again.

And for a while things are amazing, the best Tommy can ever remember them being. Adam is radiantly happy, and Tommy is quietly thrilled himself, the nagging fear that something's going to go wrong fading slowly day by day. They even go out together a few times, all four of them, and it's pretty much the coolest thing ever, and Tommy thinks he could get used to this, _really_ used to it, like on a long-term sort of level.

And then, one day, radiantly happy Adam turns into standing on his doorstep with raw, red eyes and a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand Adam, and it's like the bottom has dropped out of Tommy's world, everything suddenly off-kilter.

They split the bottle, deep swings without the trouble of glasses, and Adam talks and cries and talks some more, about what went wrong, about the miscommunications he still doesn't understand, about the plans he'd had for the future that will never come to be now. And Tommy listens, and lets Adam hold him close, because he's Adam friend, and he'll do anything for him. He loves him. He thinks he always will.

When Adam's lips finally meet his again, the first time since the last concert they played together, Tommy wants to scream, joy and surprise and confusion and anger tugging against each other within him. He's imagined this so many times, missed it, _hoped_ for it to happen again more often than he'd like to admit.

And yet. The past year flies through his head in a split-second, the space between heartbeats, and he thinks about how he's changed, about how he's not the same person he was a year ago, about how he doesn't _have_ to be. And he thinks about Talia, the one girl – the one _person_ – he has never lied to, never betrayed. He's on the knife-edge of fucking things up completely, wants so _badly_ to kiss Adam back, to let this happen, this thing that has been building between them almost since they met. But he can almost see the heartbreak starting to flood into Talia's eyes, the way she would look as she turned her back and walked out of his life forever, and he realizes that he can't. He _can't._ He doesn't want to be that person again.

He pushes Adam away as gently as he can, hoping that he just somehow _understands,_ because there's no way Tommy can put this into words. Adam doesn't push him, just sits back against the sofa and gives him a small, sad smile. They sit in silence for a long time before Adam speaks.

“I'm happy for you, Tommy. I really am.” His voice breaks on the last few words, and tears start welling in his eyes again, and Tommy pulls him back into a hug, feeling like maybe he should be proud of himself and instead just feeling like shit instead. He wonders for a moment if maybe he should have waited for Adam, should have just...and then feels even worse for even thinking it, because Talia is awesome and fun and beautiful and _gets him_ the way Adam gets him, and maybe even better, and his life is way fucking better with her in it, and he loves her. He _knows_ it.

Still. Doesn't make right now feel any better at all.

Eventually Adam leaves, gathers himself up and calls a cab home, even though Tommy asks him three times to stay. He turns at the door, something in his eyes that looks maybe a little bit like regret.

“Remember when things used to be simple?” Adam asks, all nostalgia.

Tommy's kneejerk reaction is to agree, but then he thinks, really thinks about the question, and he realizes he can't. “No. Not really.”

Adam pauses. Nods. Takes a deep breath and looks out into the night, toward the honking cab, toward home. When he glances back at Tommy one last time, his eyes are shining again, fresh tears that cut right to Tommy's heart. “See ya around,” Adam says, and he's gone before Tommy gets a chance to reply.

He watches the cab until it turns a corner and disappears from sight. Then he shuts the door, goes back inside, and pulls out his phone. Talia answers on the first ring, like she knows.

When he asks if she wants to, you know, move in with him or whatever, if she wants, there's not a single note of hesitation in her answer. She loves him. She trusts him. And, for maybe the first time, Tommy feels like what she wants from him is something he really can give.


End file.
